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Topic: GAA Board Forum Rules - Please Read (Read 12516 times)

In a bid to clarify the rules and procedures in place on this board, the following is a list of offences and relevant penalties which will apply in each case. There will be no exceptions, and no excuse for breaking these rules as they are now clearly available.

We reserve the right to amend these rules if an unforeseen circumstance arises, but due reason will be communicated for such a change. We also reserve the right to take any action up to and including permanent ban for any issue not covered by the rules, if such an unforseen event is deemed to be serious enough.

In future, any warnings or bans issued will include a reference to the rule broken.

If you are reporting a post or a poster, please indicate which rule you feel is being broken, in order for us to answer your report more efficiently.All Warnings issued have a lifetime of 3 months. If you do not commit the same offence within that 3 month period, the warning will expire. This is similar to the penalty points system with regard to road traffic offences.

By continuing to post on this site after these rules have been formally adopted, you are agreeing to abide by the rules, and accept the penalties should you breach one or more of the rules.

1. Personal abuse. Personal abuse is one of the most common problems on internet boards. Known sometimes as 'playing the man', whether foul language is used or not, this behaviour is not allowed. e.g. Calling someone a fat fool is the same as calling someone something more vulgar. This rule applies even in situations where another user has breached this, or another rule. Retaliation is still a breach of the rule.

2. Libellous/insulting posts about a real person In this day and age, many more people are becoming aware of the existance of boards such as this. While this is generally a good thing, it also means that the posts are more likely to be read by a casual visitor to the site. In these circumstances, the board must protect itself against allegations of libel, or defamation and so any posts which make derogatory remarks about a named, or clearly implied, individual, are a serious breach of the rules, and dangerous to the board itself. This particularly applies to individuals' private lives, finances, legal issues etc etc. This also applies to unwarranted abuse of GAA players and officials.

3. Revealing a posters personal identity. An inherent part of most discussion boards is that members may choose to adopt an alias, if they wish, as their board username. This choice of anonymity must be respected and any move to identify the real life identity of a poster on this board, where they have not done so themselves, is a breach of board rules.

Penalties - 1st Offence - 15 Day Ban, Second Offence - Permanent Ban

4. Inappropriate posts, incitement or racist posting. This is a very broad topic, and can be the most subjective in the way the moderators view things. In general, it would be the 'good manners' rule. Specific examples of inappropriate posts would be the following. (This list is by no means conclusive) - Abusive posts between fans of soccer teams, clearly not part of good humoured banter. Mentions of Hillsborough, Munich, Heysel or alluding to these incidents in a way designed to incite other posters to break forum rules. - Sectarian posts, or posts advocating violence against any community or person. Some of the topics under discussion from the different cultures on this island have come close to this. That will not be allowed or accomodated. - Racist posts, including posts propogating racist views about any race or community. - inappropriate posts such as the Maddie McCann jokes etc.

5. Creating facetious or duplicate topics It is very easy to post a duplicate thread topic, and is very understandable. People should, wherever possible, keep similar threads together, but this is sometimes not possible, or the other threads not seen. Again, perfectly understandable. This rule is in place to stop people deliberately and constantly posting spurious or similar threads, and blatantly disregarding the wishes of the GAA board community to keep these threads together.

Penalties. If a pattern of posting these threads emerges from an individual, a Warning will be given. Further offences will incur a 2 Day Ban, followed by a 5 Day Ban. Subsequent offences will incur repeated 5 Day Bans.

6. Posting unsuitable links or pictures This board is not a pornography resource and pornography will not be tolerated on this site. Many of our users access the board from work, and anyone posting pictures on this board need to bear that in mind. Obviously some pictures fall short of pornography, and can be posted in the proper threads, such as the 'Would you/wouldn't you' thread, but even these need to be marked NSFW. In any case, any pornographic images will be deleted and bans handed out. This rule also applies to personal avatars displayed beside your username when you post.

Penalties - 1st Offence 5 Day Ban, 2rd Offence - Permanent Ban

7. Spamming Links to viruses, spam posts or marketing will not be allowed and bans will result.

Occasionally a board member may request, from gaaboard (admin) or the moderators, permission to post information/advice about their own business or club, and these will be accomodated where possible. This rule is designed to stop touts, or spammers abusing the site.

8. Joining up to cause trouble, or to annoy people. Occasionally, some people join the board simply to post something abusive, or to 'flame' the board. These people are generally easy to spot (see the F365 invasion last year) and have no real interest in the GAA Board. Also some people, who have been banned permanently, rejoin under different usernames and continue with the behaviour that led to the ban. By tracking IPs, behaviour and other items, we can sometimes tell this fairly easily, and these users will be banned again.

Penalty - Immediate Permanent Ban

9. 'Feuds'. On occasion, two or more posters become fixated with annoying each other, without necessarily descending into personal abuse per se. However this behaviour is very disruptive to whatever thread it breaks out it, and causes threads to be taken over by tit for tat insults. In a case such as this, a moderator may post a public and private warning for both posters to completely ignore the other, refraining from referring to, directing comments at, or answering the other poster. Disregarding this warning will result in a ban.

10. Personal threats. Occasionally, some posters go beyond verbal abuse, (rule 1), and actually threaten, or imply physical violence against another poster. If moderators deem this threat to be serious, or made seriously, this behaviour is completely out of order, and will result in a ban immediately. A further offence will result in a permanent ban.